


To Ride Into Battle

by thetransgirlwhoneverwas



Series: Fictober 2020 [25]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:21:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27311827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetransgirlwhoneverwas/pseuds/thetransgirlwhoneverwas
Summary: The Time War rages, and turns even the best of men into monsters as it does. He who was once called the Doctor has forsaken the name, feeling unworthy of the title. But war effects everyone differently, and some have chosen titles that suit them better now than ever before.
Series: Fictober 2020 [25]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1952200
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	To Ride Into Battle

He should have been suspicious when he realised how lightly the ship was guarded. He should have been suspicious when the fleet attached to it was so small and didn’t seem to be keeping pace. He should have been suspicious when he had come across the Dalek guard with the broken gunstick. But he wasn’t. He was too caught up in the possibility of destroying a Dalek flagship before it had even done any damage. And now the old man was trapped on board a Dalek ship with an entirely different purpose. Not a flagship. A fireship.

“Tell me where this ship is directed!” he demanded of the disarmed and harmless Dalek in front of him, using his sonic screwdriver to send another jolt of electricity through the mutant’s helpless body.

“THIS SHIP WILL DETONATE ON THE SURFACE OF THE PLANET LOXYIN DELTA,” the creature intoned in furious monotone.

“Loxyin Delta?” the old man asked himself, for he knew the Dalek would not provide context. “Detonate on the surface? Is this a diversionary tactic, or…”

A sudden thought struck him and his mind began racing as fast as it could. He tried to gain access to a nearby computer, but it locked him out. He tried the sonic screwdriver, the device buzzing intently as it tried everything in its programmed power to break through the Dalek encryption, but the buzzing seemed to turn from determined to disappointed as its lack of avail became apparent. Instead, the old man turned back to the mutant with a ruefully malevolent glare in his eye. He used a new setting on the sonic device to weaken the molecular structure of the creature’s skin and, with a mighty grunt and a distressing sound of rending flesh and snapping bone, ripped one of the creature’s larger limbs off of its body. Ignoring the creature’s pained screams, he turned back to the computer and used the tentacle, already stiffening from rigor mortis and trauma, to gain access to the computer and find the exact coordinates of the ship’s crash site.

He turned back to the Dalek creature, pointing the now hardened point of the limb directly at the mutant’s exposed and vulnerable eye. “You’re going to crash this ship straight into the planet’s biggest natural reserve of cordite!”

The Dalek didn’t respond, but the old man wasn’t finished in his own raging accusation.

“You’re going to cause a chain reaction!” he continued. “That kind of effect will cause the planet to spin out of its orbit. Everyone on the planet will die. But, if…”

He turned back to the computer, again using the severed limb to check the navigation computer’s exact calculations.

“If you do that now, the planet will spin into its star,” he realised with growing horror. “That much cordite impacting the star would...it could destroy the entire star system. Maybe even more if the cordite on the other planets ignited at the wrong time.”

“THE LOXYIN SYSTEM WILL BE EXTERMINATED!” the Dalek droned again.

“Maybe it’s foolish to ask a Dalek this, but why?” the old man demanded. “The system is neutral in the war, it doesn’t hold any strategic value for either side. What’s the point in destroying it anyway?”

“THE SYSTEM PROVIDES A SOURCE OF CORDITE,” the Dalek answered.

“Obviously, that’s vital to your whole vile plan,” the old man snarled at the unhelpful creature. “Why do you want to get rid of the cordite in the first place?”

“CORDITE CAN BE USED AS A FUEL SOURCE FOR TIME LORD WEAPONRY,” it said.

“It can, but it isn’t,” the old man countered. “The Time Lords have much more efficient sources of fuel. They don’t need cordite for their bombs anymore.”

“IT HAS BEEN PREDICTED THAT IF THE WAR CONTINUES AND THE ENEMY LOSE ACCESS TO THEIR RESOURCES THEY WILL BEGIN USING CORDITE,” the Dalek answered, and somewhere underneath the constant rage the old man thought he detected a hint of smugness in its synthesised voice.

“So you’re going to destroy an entire populated system, just for the sake of maybe destroying a resource that we might one day use if we don’t kill you all fast enough?” the old man asked, but while once he may have spat the question with venomous fury and righteous contempt, his tone was one of exhaustion. Nothing the Daleks did surprised him anymore. There were no depths they could sink to that were lower than they had already gone. The Daleks were always evil creatures, but, not content to reach the bottom of their own lack of morality, the species had started digging even further down with disgraceful earnestness.

“Why did you even tell me this?” he asked tiredly, but as he did he slowly realised how relevant the question was. Daleks never gave up information unless there was a reason.

“COUNTDOWN TO SELF DESTRUCT IN THIRTEEN RELS!” it announced. A trap, of course it had been a trap! A distraction to keep their enemy there while it prepared its own last resort, the only avenue of attack it had left. What else were Daleks designed for if not to find any way to kill whatever they saw, the old man berated himself for falling for it. There was no way he could get away fast enough, the narrow corridors of the ship would funnel the explosion further than he could possibly run in that time. There was no way he could escape the Dalek’s final gambit.

“SELF DESTRUCT IN TEN RELS!” it shouted, and the old man could not describe how much he hated that the last thing he would hear was a Dalek, a sworn enemy, boasting at him. And not even a high ranking Dalek officer. A weaponless drone sent off to die on a fireship. “FIVE RELS! FOUR! THREE! TWO!”

The old man closed his eyes and wished that he had lived long enough to one day reclaim the name Doctor. As he did, he heard a metallic screech of an object skidding across the floor behind him, coming to rest at the base of the Dalek’s casing. As it did, a force field emerged and encased the Dalek entirely. The creature’s lights flashed once more, but the old man didn’t hear it, before the creature exploded, the fire contained within the force field until it burned itself out. Once the flames had dissipated, the force field flickered and died, the device projecting it sparking and broken, but it had served its purpose. The old man spun around to look in the direction it had come from.

“Just in time. Sorry I’m late, old friend.”

A man stood tall in the entrance to the room, lights illuminating his bronze skin, his short cropped hair, and his greying stubble. He wore a jacket much like the old man’s, with his own bandolier, but his was stocked with devices identical to the one he had thrown to save him. His boots had metallic attachments and flashing lights on the soles, and at his hip hung a sword held in a scabbard etched with Circular Gallifreyan writing. The old man examined it closely. The writing didn’t have a direct translation into any language other than the language of the Time Lords, but it read as a mission statement: To Ride Into Battle.

“Rider?” the old man asked.

“The very same,” the Rider confirmed, striding into the room. He picked up his device, but shook his head at its broken state. “Even the smallest of Dalek bombs are too much for these, I suppose.”

“What are you doing here?” the old man asked.

“I’m here to help you, Do-” he stopped himself, averting his gaze to the side for a moment. “I’m sorry. I’m here to help you. Besides, what kind of a way is that to greet an ally?” he asked with a smirk, as if to acknowledge his and the old man’s history.

“I admit, it has been a while,” the old man said. “And I haven’t seen this you before. Mind if I ask which incarnation you are?”

“This is my fifth,” the Rider admitted. “I regenerated very early on the in War. My fourth tried to run, but it didn’t last. The War catches up with every Time Lord eventually.”

The old man’s mind drifted briefly to the thought of his granddaughter and was racked with guilt and anguish for a moment, but he shook it off. “Well, you’ve come at a bad time I’m afraid. This ship is going to collide with Loxyin Delta.”

“Loxyin Delta?” the Rider asked. “But if it was aimed right, at this time of century-”

“The Daleks have done their calculations,” the old man confirmed. “If this ship hits and the core detonates, the entire system will go up in flames. I can’t let that happen.”

“Where is the core?” the Rider asked. “This ship isn’t big enough to penetrate the surface deep enough to get to any cordite deposits. If we can stop the core from going nuclear we can probably stop the whole thing.”

“I believe the core is down the way you came in,” the old man pointed down the corridor. “We don’t have much time before impact. Let’s hurry.”

He and the Rider took off down the hall as fast as the old man could run without losing breath. The Rider didn’t look like he was exerting himself very much, but was making an effort to keep pace. He looked exactly at home running down a corridor to save a solar system.

“I’d heard you were fighting in the war, Rider, but I hadn’t seen you before,” the old man remarked. “I must admit I was surprised. Knowing you as I did, I didn’t think you would.”

“My previous selves wouldn’t have,” the Rider admitted. “Even the nicest of them would have run. But this War...it’s bigger than me. It’s bigger than every me. It’s about the whole universe, all of history. The entire story of everything that’s ever existed. If that all came to an end because people like me refused to help, what kind of storyteller would I be? What kind of person would I be?”

“I’ve known you for but a few minutes,” the old man admired, “but already you’ve proven a better man than I’ve met in a very long time.”

“I suppose it’s about time one of me stepped up,” the Rider joked as they approached a large room. Wires covered the walls, feeding upwards and across the ceiling, then down into a central structure that glowed and hummed with power.

“The core,” the old man explained.

“Hmm,” the Rider agreed, pulling another device from his coat pocket and pointing it at the central structure as the old man did the same with his sonic screwdriver. They looked at their respective results, and an idea formed in the old man’s mind.

“Rider,” he said. “Do you still wear a Time Ring?”

“Of course,” the Rider said, rolling up his sleeve to reveal it on his right wrist.

“Good,” the old man stepped forwards towards the core. “Thank you for saving my life. Now get out of here while you have time.”

“Absolutely not,” the Rider didn’t even question the reasoning before refusing. “I’m here to help.”

“There’s only one way to vent the energy in the core without it erupting upon planetfall,” the old man explained. “It has to be contained in something else.”

“Something that can contain the energy and not release it all at once,” the Rider agreed. “Thankfully it’s not too much, they were counting on the reaction from the cordite doing most of the damage.”

“I’m going to contain the energy within myself,” the old man said. “That will stop the energy from exploding. The Loxyin system will be safe.”

“Then I’ll join you,” the Rider insisted. “I’ll take half of the energy. It will be safer and more likely to succeed with two separate vessels anyway.”

“No,” the old man tried to wave the Rider off. “I’ll do it myself. There’s too much energy, even a Time Lord couldn’t survive that.”

“But two Time Lords might,” the Rider stepped up to meet the old man.

“They might not.”

“That’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

“You’d risk your own life, just to take a chance at saving mine?” the old man asked.

“Without question,” the Rider nodded. “I couldn’t think of a worthier cause.”

A feeling welled up inside the old man that he hadn’t felt in a very long time. Beyond happiness or even pride in his former enemy turned friend turned enemy again, now standing alongside him in battle. A sense of camaraderie and companionship that he hadn’t felt since before the War had managed to swallow the Doctor.

“I suppose I can’t talk you out of it,” the old man relented.

“Not a chance,” the Rider smiled slyly. He pointed his device at the core structure and activated it. The containment barrier around the core itself retracted, and the two Time Lord warriors stepped forward and, with a pair of deep breaths, laid their hands upon the core to absorb the energy.

Pain, more than a Dalek shot, more than regeneration, more than he could describe, forced its way into the old man’s hands, and thrust its way through his body in waves, first his arms, then his torso, and then down to his legs were engulfed by it. His mind burned with the agony and he squeezed his eyes shut and begged himself not to cry out. He dragged his eyelid open and looked over to his companion who wore the same expression as they took the energy powering the Dalek ship away from the core and rid it of its destructive force. The core itself dimmed slowly as more and more power was siphoned away into the bodies of the struggling Time Lords. Time slowed to a crawl, the universe bending its own laws to prolong the suffering, punish the two for daring to try to make a difference in a cruel existence being consumed by the flames of hate and greed and selfishness, but they refused to surrender to the waves of pain and the tides of death until finally, far longer than either had bothered to count after they had started, history relented and the core was spent. 

The old man tried to stand as long as he could, but he could no longer feel any of his body for the sting overtaking every sensation, and he didn’t even feel his legs collapse under himself until his head hit the metal floor, adding another wave of pain to his aching body. The Rider fell soon afterwards, and the two lay on the floor, trying desperately to breath and feel anything that didn’t hurt, in pain and still in danger, but very much alive. The core shuddered and the last vestiges of light faded as the ship approached her final destination. Mere moments before impact, the old man saw the Rider drag himself over to him and grasp him firmly with his right hand, before pressing a button on his Time Ring and the ship disappeared around him. Lights filled the old man’s vision, blinding, swirling, everchanging lights, and he closed his eyes but the light still bombarded his visions, but within seconds it was over and he was lying on a soft patch of grass, staring at the vibrant orange and pink sky of a sunset on Loxyin Delta.

He felt the energy leaving his body, slowly, taking waves of pain with it but leaving a dull ache in his bones that he knew he would feel for a while. It would not leave him for a long time, but the planet beneath him was still there. The energy left slowly, safely. He forced himself to sit up, but as he did his stomach rumbled, and performed several complex maneuvers inside of him until the last remnants of the core’s energy left him through his mouth in an embarrassing belch of fire. He coughed, but his coughing turned to laughter, and the sound was soon joined by the Rider’s laughter. He lay back down and they wordlessly allowed themselves a moment of relaxation after the day.

“Thank you, Rider,” the old man said after a while. “Without you I would have died.”

“And without you a lot of people would have died,” the Rider shot back.

“I think you can take much of the credit today,” the old man laughed. “Regardless of what the War has done to anyone else, it has made you a truly good man. A better man than me.”

“You saved a lot of people today,” the Rider argued. “You are too harsh on yourself. You are more Doctor than you let yourself believe.”

“I think you deserve that name more than I do for now,” the old man said, somewhat darkly.

“But it is not my name to deserve,” the Rider answered as he slowly dragged himself to his feet. He held out his hand and the old man took it, the Rider helping him gently to his own feet.

“I will do as my name dictates and continue to ride,” he said, his bronze skin resplendent in the sunset light. “You’ll find me in the heart of the battle, wherever that heart may be. As for you,” he paused, and took a moment to admire the setting sun. “You keep doing what you are doing. Help people. As many people as you can.”

The Rider shot one last genuine and warm smile at the Doctor before he set his Time Ring to carry him back into the fight.

“It’s what you do best.”


End file.
